10,000 steps a day can't be that hard? Right?

THE journey of a thousand miles may begin with a single step, but the journey of 10,000 steps a day for a month begins with this single thought:

'Well, how hard could it be?'

So two weeks ago I strapped a pedometer to my waist and have been harnessed to the little slave driver ever since.

I quickly discovered that my step counting gadget was not entirely accurate after clocking up 48 steps just driving to work.

And later that day, Long Suffering Wife showed me how shaking it made my walk count rise faster than our electricity bill.

After pointing out that this was technically cheating, I learnt two more things:

1. Pedometers are virtually indestructible

2. A pedometer ricocheting off your head and on to the floor adds another five steps to your daily total.

It was interesting to note that my daily walk with Long Suffering Wife's dogs is about 2500 steps, but when I clipped the pedometer to Dumb Dog's collar he racked up nearly 5000 steps over the same distance.

Mind you, half of those were toilet stops so they don't really count.

But the dogs did keep me motivated.

One afternoon they inspired me to walk a little faster by herding an angry brown snake on to the track I was dreamily dawdling along.

I don't know how many steps I did from that point on, but they were all pretty big ones.